


hibernation

by hoopdedoop



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4842371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoopdedoop/pseuds/hoopdedoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter is a season of dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hibernation

**Author's Note:**

> Scenario courtesy of Reshi (dank-koish on tumblr dot com). We were playing that "you say a character, I say a hc" game, and this came up.

       

       

       

       

       

“The weather is lovely today, isn't it?”

Yukari couldn't tell.

“Oh, yes, it certainly is.”

For her, it was hard to tell much here, but she didn't dislike it. Reclining, she laid down.

“It's very calm this time of year. After all the stress of the new year's and Christmas and all.”

Yukari hadn't thought about it that way before. “How about non-seasonal holidays?”

“None fall into the first few winter months this year, oh no they don't!”

To her north, the colors of this pink and purple realm was saturating. Dots were being filled in, one by one, shifting and changing color. Doremy pointed in their direction, and Yukari turned her head to look. “Oh, would you look at that!”

Yukari saw. “Yes. Quite beautiful.”

“That's the western hemisphere. As your world falls into darkness, mine becomes all the more active. Isn't that interesting?”

Yukari had always respected Doremy, and she had always enjoyed her company. She was a bit too sentimental for the two of them to be a perfect match, though.

“Indeed it is.” Yukari responded. “When night falls, the world changes, cycling. My powers rely on it as well, you know.”

“Are you related to the songbirds, by any chance?” Doremy asked.

Yukari was taken by surprise, something which Doremy was humored to see. She didn't want to let Yukari think about that one though, lest she figure it out.

“They sing at dawn and at dusk, don't they? Just like how the evening star shines the brightest at the border of night and day.”

Yukari allowed herself a laugh. “I have been likened to many things, but this is a first.” Perhaps Doremy's sentimentality wasn't so bad, after all. “Why, that's very sweet of you.”

“That's me.” Doremy joked. “What are you usually likened to, then? It must be all matter of lovely things. Why, a lady like you.” She was being just a bit sarcastic, but Yukari knew better than to take it heart.

“Oh, you know how it is.”

_Ding._

“Oh!” Excited, Doremy turned around. Outside her field of vision, the oven had been standing, all along, ever since just now.

She opened up, with the mittens she was now wearing.

“Oh, were you baking?” Yukari was unsurprised.

“Yes, yes. Since I have a guest and all.” Doremy now held a plate.

“Oh dear, there was no need to go through all that trouble just for me.”

Doremy let go of the plate, on top of it a nameless glazed pink pastry. Slowly, it made its way to Yukari, as if purely by chance.

“You know I'm not much for desserts.” Yukari caught the plate as it passed her. The pastry itself was already headed in a somewhat different direction.

“The filling is made from some specially harvested dreams I have been saving since Christmas.” Doremy clasped her hands. “Children's dreams, filled to the brim with hope, expectations... Yukari, this is a delicacy. You simply must have some.”

Yukari wasn't very interested. “Don't you have some of those children's dreams, but without the dreams?”

“It's not good to be picky!” Doremy lectured, trying not to laugh. “Not after I made that for you, at least.”

“As your guest, I honestly don't expect much from you. You are already relieving me from the boredom of months of unconsciousness, so I can't really be making demands.” Yukari had just placed the pastry back on the plate, but it took off once more, floating upwards.

“I hardly get guests, so I want to treat them well.” It was the truth. “It gets lonely out here, you know?”

“Oh, I know, dear.” Yukari could relate. She isolated herself a lot too. Yukari tasted the pastry. “Mmm- _mm-”_

She shook her head. She might have bit off too much.

“Do you like it?” Doremy asked expectantly.

 _“-It's too sweet!”_ Yukari said, having just swallowed, crumbs on her fingertips.

“It's supposed to be sweet, silly!” Doremy handed her a napkin. “Why, you really aren't as cultured as you look!”

Yukari felt like her tongue was going to roll up. Yet, she had another bite. “Next time, there's no need for pastries Doremy dear,”

“Oh really now? How else will I make you feel welcome?” Doremy smiled.

The two of them were having a lot of fun bantering, the two bored souls they were.

“Just let me know if you have any of your Lunarian friends passing by. That's all I ask of you. You know I hate idle chit-chat.” Yukari used the napkin.

Doremy knew Yukari hated more than just the chit-chat. “I thought you enjoyed any company you could get, this time of the year?”

“Company, sure!” Yukari said, “I like that. I dislike a menace, though, so let me know.”

Doremy, too, disliked a menace. They were fine on their own, but if Yukari and her Lunarian friends were brought together, a menace would certainly appear.

“When they let me know, I'll let you know.”

Doremy was never actually informed whether or not someone would be passing by.

“Wonderful!”

“About people passing through, though,” Doremy thought back to the incident this summer. “I met that dear Hakurei shrine maiden of yours, not too long ago.”

“Oh... Right, you did.” Yukari didn't have much to say about it.

“So?” Doremy was curious. “Did she tell you anything about me?”

“She mentioned you, I think.” Idle chit-chat: Reimu had never been fond of it either.

“No more than that?” Doremy had hoped they could have made a conversation out of it. “You'd think I leave more of an impression than that.”

“I think...” Yukari seemed to remember something. “She did say she didn't like you, see, it's because you went easy on her.”

“Really?” Doremy crossed her arms, amused. “She's a tough one. Hard to charm.”

“Right,” Yukari was almost finished with her pastry. “Don't take it personally. She's like that with everyone.”

“Oh really? You, too?” Doremy had found something else to talk about.

“Well, yes. Most of time, she is.” There was no need to elaborate more than that.

“Maybe she just doesn't like you? Have you considered that?” Doremy smiled that smug smile of hers.

“I have.” Yukari shrugged.

“It's funny, because, see,” Doremy thought back to when she had met Reimu. “I remember thinking about it, I remembering thinking that the two of you are quite alike.”

“Sure we are.”

Doremy waited just a bit. Yukari had the last of her pastry, and said nothing more.

“Now, isn't that funny?” Doremy had definitely thought so.

“I'm not exactly laughing.” Yukari played indifferent.

“Oh, I hear you. Perhaps, our sense of humor is just too different.”

Yukari didn't want to talk, and Doremy was just sensible enough let it go.

 

 

 

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“I thought you said I didn't owe you anything, just because you were a guest?” Doremy replied, yet, she was happy to oblige. “What will it be?”

“Just some tea. To wash down that sweetness.”

“Of course.” Doremy turned her head upward. A teapot had been sitting there, in mid air, since just now.

“Oh my, that is lovely.” Yukari said as she saw it. It was brittle-looking, white, with hand-painted pink and purple blossoms.

Approaching Yukari, Doremy pulled out a teacup atop a saucer from behind Yukari's head. They matched the pot.

“Now, I would recommend chamomile, rooibos, or perhaps, a nice ginger tea?” Doremy asked, offering some of her own favorite blends.

“Chamomile will do just fine, thank you.” Yukari held the teacup that stood in the saucer in one hand, while holding onto the saucer itself with the other. She'd rather they didn't depart on her.

“Excellent choice!” Doremy poured the tea, and as she did, Yukari noted the pleasant scent of Chamomile.

“Now, this is better.” Yukari sipped the tea. It was just the right temperature.

“Are you sure there is nothing else I can do for you?” Doremy wasn't really busy or anything.

Yukari tried to think of something. “Say, Doremy,” It was a silly request, as silly as it was obvious. “Is there anyone in my Gensoukyou dreaming any interesting dreams?”

“They're not.” Doremy responded. “It's daytime after all.”

Doremy had some tea herself, too. “People like you aren't as common there as in the rest of the world.”

Yukari could think of a few. “There's at least one.”

Doremy wasn't so surprised. “Really?” She glanced at the eastern hemisphere. 

“She should be sleeping about now. Could you look her up?”

Doremy slurped her tea, and then let go of the saucer and cup both. “I'll need at least a name. And no cat-nappers, those usually don't generate much dreams.”

“Oh she's not a cat-napper. Her name's Remilia.”

“Ahh...” Doremy was pretty quick to get to work. “What a beautiful name. Should make her easy to find, too.”

There would be no window opening up to the living world. The dreams existed right here, in this realm.

“Let's see, let's see...”

Yukari raised the teacup once more. She closed her eyes, breathed the scent of the chamomile, and enjoyed the taste as she sipped the tea.

When she opened her eyes, the scenery had shifted. They were now in the eastern hemisphere, where the dreams laid not as proximate to one other. At least, not yet. The sky, if it could be called so, because it was all there was, was lacking in pigmentation, and the horizon was glaringly empty.

“Here we are.” An object, if it could be called that, had Doremy's attention. It's shape and texture shifted, although slowly, leisurely.

Yukari looked at it, and as expected, she couldn't make out anything. “So?”

Doremy lightly touched the surface with both hands. “Hmm-hmm.” She didn't need to concentrate.

“She's just like us, having tea after a snack. It's dusk, and she's sitting by a window.”

It wasn't much of a coincidence, Yukari thought.

“Oh, I see now, her dress is pearly white, just like the table cloth.”

Yukari imagined this was a first-person dream. “What tea is she drinking?” Yukari asked, just for the sake of it. She was almost out of her own.

“It's red, but too red to be anything ordinary...” Doremy gave it some thought. “This smell is familiar to her, ah, she likes it very much.”

Yukari hadn't actually eaten in weeks. Well, not in the flesh. “There's no need to tempt me, you know.”

Doremy laughed. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Anything else?”

“Oh, there's a woman here now.” Doremy responded. “A human, rather tall, a sweet smile.”

“Ah, that must be Sakuya.” Yukari was losing interests, but there had never been that much interest in the first place.

“Yes, Sakuya! That's her name, it's right here.” It was there, in the indents, the texture of the dream itself. Doremy comprehended her, the shape of her face, the color of her eyes, the hair on her head. She was someone dear, someone familiar.

“Oh, now the scenery destructed. It's late at night, she's outside.”

Dreams change just like that. They don't follow the flow of time or any of the other rules of reality. And when the change happens, it is nothing but natural. There was no need to tell Yukari about this, for she already knew.

“The wind is warm. Is it summer, I wonder? She doesn't seem to know herself.”

Yukari watched Doremy. “How does it work, how do you see all that?”

“I don't see anything different from what you see.” Doremy held the dream in her hands. “But I know what to look for.”

“What do you look for, then?” Yukari wouldn't let her get away with an explanation like that.

“The markings, the indents... They all mean different things.” Doremy ran her hand across the surface once more. Remilia was still in the forest. She was watching the moon, but the starry sky was different from what it would look like from the eastern hemisphere, Doremy realized.

Was Remilia visiting her old home, or was she simply projecting the sky as she remembered it onto the skies of Gensoukyou?

“So, it's like braille?” Yukari asked, trying to hold back a laugh.

“It's no more like braille than it is like any written alphabet, really.” Doremy wouldn't be offended. “Except, it's not technically a language.”

“What is it, then?”

“It's just a dream, Yukari.” Doremy let Remilia's dream go. “The shape of the dream itself is from the subconscious mind, the part of the mind that creates the scenario of the dream, the things that happen, and so on. The indents are caused by the emotions of the dreamers, their thoughts and feelings, the part of the brain that reacts consciously to the dream.”

It was more or less like Yukari had imagined. Doremy wasn't going to get more technical than that. “I see.”

“It's interesting, because most dreams are forgotten when the dreamer awakes. Most dreams are also insignificant, like the dream of your vampire friend, processing only everyday activities, carrying on as if the dreamer was awake.” Remilia's dream still floated nearby.

“Dreams are seen by many humans as a tool for seeing the future or otherwise predicting good or bad omens, as a source of mystic powers,” Yukari added, “They don't even realize most of them are anything but.”

Doremy laughed. “Exactly. Not even one dream in ten has anything interesting in it.”

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Yukari didn't realize she had cut Doremy off. “What else, they react as if they were awake as well! Even though it's just a dream, made up by their own mind.”

“Oh, but Doremy, that's wrong.”

She had said it without thinking. A slip of tongue if you will; although without too dire a consequence.

“It's not made up.” Yukari smiled.

“Everything is real, Doremy.”

Doremy nodded, playfully smiling.

_Can't forget who you're talking too._

“Of course, Yukari.”

       

       

       

       

       

Music played from the phonograph. Even after centuries of technological innovation, for Yukari, it was the first thing to come to mind. When awake, and in the world of the living, she may prefer her Ipod. However, the first time she had ever heard music played from a recording had made just that much of an impression on her.

The song changed whenever she seemed to properly listen in to it, but she didn't mind.

She liked it here, and before she had realized, it had been long enough.

Yukari had fled her sleeping form for awhile, detaching her mind from her body, and it was time to go back.

“Thank you for having me, Doremy dear. I had a great time.”

“Oh, are you leaving already?” Doremy didn't sound disappointed, but she was, even if only a little.

“A few days is more than enough, my friend.”

“I see.” Doremy wouldn't make her stay. “Be on your way then. And revisit, if you have the time.”

They both knew she did.

“Oh, perhaps. I'll look into it.” Yukari played along.

“You are welcome back here soon, if you wish.” Doremy offered. “People will start dreaming of spring. I'll treat you to a spring-flavored dream, the best there is.”

“Really? The best there is?” Yukari was just a bit curious. “It's not too sweet, then?”

“It has a rich, fresh taste: sweet but sour at the same time. I'm sure you'll love it.”

Yukari actually didn't dislike the sound of that.

“Oh, I'm sure I will.”

“I'll look forward to your next visit, then?” Doremy was optimistic.

“When should I come? How soon?” Yukari asked. “When do people start dreaming of spring?”

“It depends,” Doremy said, “Some dream of it all year around. I know you do.”

Yukari was just a little embarrassed.

“Really? I am not one to go by, then?”

“No, not really. But please, come see me again in a few weeks. I'll make sure to save you a few good ones.”

When Yukari left, it was through the rift between the concept of the two entities that allow living beings to dream. As long as the conscious and subconscious mind remain in coexistence, living beings possess infinite power, for they can all create something from nothing, they can all create new realities.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

Hello. Huppa here. This was one of those spur of the moment things, so it's not very polished. It was fun and rewarding to write however, so as the writer I enjoyed myself.

One time when I was lazy-browsing 4chan many years ago, someone posted a link to instructions of how to lucid dream. I wasn't really interested in the idea of lucid dreaming, but I still read it, probably because I was bored. A few days/weeks later, I had my first lucid dream, without even trying to have one. Now was this purely a coincidence, or did I have a lucid dream simply because I had read about them? Does that make it a real lucid dream? I mean, I might as well have been dreaming that I was having a lucid dream, like, you know, maybe the idea of being able to consciously affect my dreams was what the dream was about.

Anyway, that lucid dream was pretty fun. I had a hard time getting it to work at first, and the dream wasn't very long, but it was fun. First thing I did when I realized what was going on, was that I tried to change my clothes. I was wearing something like a pajama in a public place, so I tried changing it to something really fancy, like a big ball gown. It didn't work, I concentrated really hard to make it work but it didn't! I let it go, thought it was strange, but I went to explore the dream anyway. I was at a subway station. After I entered thought the automatic doors, a moment passed, and before I had realized, I was wearing the dress!

I learned that, perhaps, lucid dreams work like that. You can't bend reality before your very eyes, even in a dream. You need a transition, a change of scenery, before it works. Like walking through a door, or crossing a border.

Anyway I thought it'd be funny if the dream world worked a bit like this. At least for a conscious guest like Yukari it might, to an extent.

As for what shape a lucid dream takes, I don't know. You'd have to ask Doremy.

Thank you for reading!

       

       

       


End file.
